Nearly fifty years ago George Romero forever changed the landscape of the indie horror films with his debut feature Night of the Living Dead (1968). This tradition has continued as emerging directors have used horror to launch their careers, consistently breathing new life into the genre—from Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
This generation introduces a new wave of indie horror films that play with cultural influences, horror clichés and self-awareness within their work. Here are ten indie horror films that are redefining fear.
1. THE BABADOOK (2014)
Director: Jennifer Kent
Writer: Jennifer Kent
Budget: $2 million
Summary: The Babadook (2014) is about a troubled young boy and his mother, who find themselves tormented by a nightmarish creature that appears in their home via a mysterious pop-up children’s book. Following the film’s release, William Friedkin, the legendary director of The Exorcist, announced: “I’ve never seen a more terrifying film.”
2. TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL (2010)
Director: Eli Craig
Writer: Eli Craig, Morgan Jurgenson
Budget: $2 million
Summary: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) is an incredibly entertaining twist of perspective, following two hapless rednecks that are mistaken for backwoods killers by a group of preppy college kids. This film is a romp in ‘meta-horror’ territory, slashing its way through tropes and emerging covered in blood and gore and a whole lot of heart.
3. CREEP (2014)
Director: Patrick Brice
Writer: Patrick Brice, Mark Duplass
Budget: Unknown
Summary: Creep (2014) is unlike anything you’ve seen before: a mumblecore found footage endeavour that treads the water between comedy and psychological horror. Director/writer Patrick Brice plays a naïve videographer who answers a cryptic online ad, and begins documenting the charming and increasingly unhinged Mark Duplass, who produced and co-wrote the film. This film truly a testament to what two people can do with talent, a camera and a rubber wolf mask.
4. THE ORPHANAGE (2007)
Director: J.A. Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Budget: $4 million
Summary: If you prefer your horror films to come with a pedigree, rest assured that The Orphanage (2007) not only opened at the Cannes Film Festival, but also received a ten-minute standing ovation from the audience. The film centers on a woman who moves her family into the orphanage that she grew up in, her hopes to reopen it abruptly halted when her son goes missing under mysterious circumstances.
5. DOG SOLDIERS (2002)
Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall
Budget: $2 million
Summary: Before director Neil Marshall released his critically acclaimed feature The Decent (2005), he first tested the waters of horror with Dog Soldiers (2002), a film that wholeheartedly celebrates the low-budget comedy-horror genre. In the Scottish Highlands a group of soldiers is forced to barricade themselves in a farmhouse and fight off a wave of bloodthirsty werewolves.
6. RESOLUTION (2012)
Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Writer: Justin Benson
Budget: Unknown
Summary: A disarmingly funny genre-twisting film that opens with a man’s aggressive attempt to help detox his meth-addicted best friend, and switches gear when a mysterious entity begins targeting them. Exploring a barrage of classic horror-film clichés, Resolution (2012) is a breath of fresh air for those who feel they have thoroughly OD’d on the genre.
7. LAKE MUNGO (2008)
Director: Joel Anderson
Writer: Joel Anderson
Budget: $1 million
Summary: Presented as a faux-documentary about the death and secretive live of a sixteen year old girl, Lake Mungo (2008) feels like something you might stumble across while watching late night television, blurring the line between reality and nightmare. This is a gem of a horror film that blends the complexity of grief, memory and the afterlife.
8. A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014)
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writer: Ana Lily Amirpour
Budget: $1 million
Summary: The critically acclaimed A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is a stylish cross-cultural black-and-white feast for the eyes that can be summed up by its tagline, ‘The first Iranian Vampire Western’. The result is a film that was clearly made with excitement, passion and a true love of the cinema.
9. HONEYMOON (2014)
Director: Leigh Janiak
Writer: Phil Graziadei, Leigh Janiak
Budget: $1 Million USD
Summary: In the 2014 film Honeymoon, a newlywed couple finds their brief marital bliss shattered when the bride begins sleepwalking and acting increasingly erratic. This film plays on the very relatable anxiety that goes along with intimacy and commitment, taking it to a chilling extreme.
10. THE LOVED ONES (2009)
Director: Sean Byrne
Writer: Sean Byrne
Budget: $4 million
Summary: A future cult classic, The Loved Ones (2009) feels like an absolutely horrific mashup of Carrie (1976) and Misery (1990). When a socially awkward young woman is turned down for a date to the prom by the high school heartthrob, she and her father take things into their own hands to give her the night that she so desperately desires.
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